You would be surprised how much CWR moves!
It definitely moves. Keep in mind that sometimes CWR/LWR lengths get left in the four foot for many years, and over this period of time, moving a few mm per week or more can soon add up.
If anyones been between shotton and bidston lately, the old track that’s just been replaced has just been thrown in the bushes fully intact with sleepers still attached. I’m gonna guess it’ll be there forever. Looks awful.
Not the only time this has happened. And definitely will not be the last. Unfortunately there are various reasons. The T3 occupation time (the time the line is closed for engineering work) is limited, so the renewal work takes priority over scrap recovery. Scrap recovery is not part of the contract with the contractor used. The contractor did not have a robust work plan, so scrap recovery is the easiest item to drop…
Sometimes scrap rail is left because the rail change was an emergency job (defect detected, so high priority to change the rail as not doing so means line closure or emergency speed restriction), as not a planned (as in weeks in advance) job, no time or resources to always remove the old rail.
Sometimes the occupation to remove the scrap rail is used for higher priority work, such as dealing with an emergency rail change or other defect. So the scrap stays where it is…
Some of the scrap rail by the lineside (also known as the cess) has been there for tens of years.
Rail placed in the 4ft does move, but only along the sleepers, usually in the direction of predominant traffic. It moves with a combination of the vibrations from the trains and with the cycle of temperatures causing expansion and contraction.
It can be surprisingly quick (although still over the course of weeks and months) and has been known to cause damage to equipment placed in the 4ft.
Rail in the four foot, or on the sleeper ends, can, and does damage S&T cables and equipment.
CWR old or new bends so much that you would think it was made of rubber.
Lay people (including most railway employees outside the civil engineering/ P.way sections) don’t appreciate how bendy mild steel rail actually is when it’s being moved by machines.
I must admit that my impression was that CWR usually moves in the opposite direction to the traffic on reasonably level track, although that may perhaps depend on the type of vibrations caused by the stock used on the line concerned. Certainly I have seen 200yard long rails weighing about ten tons that have moved sixty or a hundred feet along the track, and they move with a lot of power. Any TPWS boot scraper for example that gets in the way will be shoved aside, and I have found a rail that had cut a one inch deep trench through the top of a softwood sleeper that stood in its way.
I've definitely always found it to be in the direction of traffic, as with most things, e.g. the old wooden track keys for bullhead.
I've seen a few smashed TPWS grids (bootscraper is a nickname I'd not heard before, usually get waffles or toastrack), plenty of cables, and one bit of rail that would get reported as heading for a level crossing every few months. I don't think the crossing keeper ever let it get to the crossing to find out which would win that battle.
My experience is that on level track, CWR/LWR tends to travel in the direction of travel of the trains (assuming it’s a unidirectional line).
Scrap or new rails that move either catch and stretch (and then break) S&T (signalling equipment) cables, or scrape over the top and crush them.
And yes, a TPWS track grid / aerial (the most often nickname is toast rack, followed by trampoline) are also casualties of rails that move. At Patchway junction, a length of CWR/LWR has damaged the same TPWS (well, not really the same as we keep having to replace the broken parts) at least twice, and been reported many other times over the course of at least four years. Each time a bit more was cut off the end of the rail, as the local P.Way had no means of moving the whole length of the rail. It may even still be there…
Rails in the four foot also threaten AWS equipment, ATP equipment and cables, and axle counter heads.
I have seen occurrences of scrap rail being left in the 4 foot, and having it play havoc with the old Aster track circuits. Can be a pain in the neck sometimes, although not as much as when they dump it without looking and flatten our cables...
Best one I had, was when a new rail was being unloaded off a TRAMM (rail engineering vehicle), they dropped it on top of an ASTER tuning unit, which lost out big time. When we got there, it had been smashed to smithereens…
Unbelievably, some years later, another rail renewal and somehow the P.Way had smashed another ASTER unit. I don’t think they were using a TRAMM that time though.
Here’s a picture of what an ASTER trackside unit looks like:
Sorry to be a pain, but what's the 'four foot'?
The modern definition is: the bit between the running rails which is the only practical place to walk, due to everywhere else being either covered with weeds, brambles, buddleia bushes, small trees, or scrap rail/sleepers/cable/you name it…
Name derived from the gauge in imperial of 4 feet 8½ inches.
